"You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit."— Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)

Thursday, June 30, 2016

HWA POETRY SHOWCASE III: MEET CHAD STROUP

Hi Everyone,Over the next few weeks, I'll be posting interviews with the poets whose work was selected in the top five for the third installment of the HWA Poetry Showcase. This week, I welcome Chad Stroup to THE MADHOUSE. How did you hear about the poetry showcase?

I can’t remember where I heard about the first volume because
that was before I was a member of the HWA, but I most likely found out about
the submission call for this most recent edition through the HWA Facebook
group.

What is the title of you poem? Why did you decide to
submit that particular piece?

"Nuclear Winter Kiss." I decided to submit it for a couple of
reasons: 1. It was the only poem I was writing at the time that hadn’t already
been published elsewhere and 2. I honestly felt it was one of the strongest
poems I’d ever written. It was dark without fitting into a neat box and it just
felt so equally right and wrong, if that makes sense. I was so ecstatic when I
found out it was worthy of being a featured poem. I can pat myself on the back
all day long for a job well done, but when people I’ve never met before
recognize it as special I feel like I must be doing something right.

3.What is your process like for writing poetry?

Usually I come up with a title first, then just start letting my
mind go wild. I’ve started developing sort of a signature visual style with
many of my poems, so I often shape and arrange them based on what feels right.
Sometimes my poems are abandoned short story ideas that I rip apart until only
the core remains, which is how "Nuclear Winter Kiss" came to be. Sometimes the
opposite is true. In the case of my upcoming novel, I wrote poems about all of
the primary characters first, then the story started pouring out.

4.Who are some of your poetic influences?

I’ll probably get publicly flogged
for this, but I honestly don’t read much poetry. In

fact, the only poems I’ve read in recent years were the poems in
the other editions of the HWA Poetry Showcase (and I’ll certainly be reading
them all in the new one as well). Though I’ve written and/or published a decent
amount of poetry (perhaps even enough to do some sort of collection at this
point), I’m predominantly a fiction writer, so that is where my literary
influences lie. However, music is and always has been an enormous part of my
life, and the best lyricists are also poets in my opinion. With that in mind, I
can list influences like Steven Patrick Morrissey, Peter Murphy, Ian Curtis,
Nick Cave, Darby Crash, Nick Blinko, Elizabeth Fraser (possibly the most
brilliantly weird lyricist of all time), Rick Froberg, Jerry A., and Guy
Picciotto.

Who are you reading now and who/what are you looking forward
to reading for the remainder of the year?

I just finished The Fireman by Joe
Hill and I’m about to start reading The Night Marchers by Daniel Braum. My
Need-to-Read pile is as large as always, but I’m looking forward to reading new books
by Paul Tremblay, Kristopher Triana, andJeremy P. Bushnell (none of which I
even have in my physical pile yet…yikes!), as well as a couple of older books by David J. Schow I just
scored.

Are you currently working on anything that you want to announce?
Has anything of yours recently been published that you would like to talk
about?

Later this year, Grey Matter Press will be releasing my debut
novel Secrets of the Weird. All I’m going to say is that I promise this book is
not like anything else out there and I’m very excited for it to be unleashed
upon the world. I also have a new short story called “Acquired Taste” coming
out in July, published in a New Zealand-based e-zine called Capricious. The
story is very dark, strange, and hopelessly dystopian.

BIO:

Chad Stroup received his MFA in Fiction from San Diego State
University. His short stories have been featured in anthologies like Splatterlands and Creature Stew, and his poetry has appeared in the first three
volumes of the HWA Poetry Showcase. Secrets
of the Weird, Stroup’s debut novel, is forthcoming from Grey Matter Press.
Visit Subvertbia, a home for some of his short fiction, poetry, and reviews at http://subvertbia.blogspot.com/, and
drop by his Facebook page as well. https://www.facebook.com/ChadStroupWriter.

Behind the Madness

Stephanie M. Wytovich is an American poet, novelist, and essayist. Her
work has been showcased in numerous anthologies such as Gutted:
Beautiful Horror Stories, Shadows Over Main Street: An Anthology of
Small-Town Lovecraftian Terror, Year's Best Hardcore Horror: Volume 2,
The Best Horror of the Year: Volume 8, as well as many others.

Wytovich
is the Poetry Editor for Raw Dog Screaming Press, an adjunct at Western
Connecticut State University and Point Park University, and a mentor
with Crystal Lake Publishing. She is a member of the Science Fiction
Poetry Association, an active member of the Horror Writers Association,
and a graduate of Seton Hill University’s MFA program for Writing
Popular Fiction. Her Bram Stoker Award-winning poetry collection,
Brothel, earned a home with Raw Dog Screaming Press alongside Hysteria:
A Collection of Madness, Mourning Jewelry, An Exorcism of Angels, and
Sheet Music to My Acoustic Nightmare. Her debut novel, The Eighth, is
published with Dark Regions Press.

Follow Wytovich at http://www.stephaniewytovich.com/ and on twitter @SWytovich​.